Beyond ‘so what?’ criminology: Rediscovering realism

There has been a growing concern about the lack of policy

relevance of criminology in recent years. Two influential responses to

this dilemma have been presented. On one hand, it has been

argued that academic criminologists should become more active in

mobilizing points of consensus about what works, while on the

other hand it has been suggested that there should be a division of

labour among academics and that the subject be broken down into

public, professional, policy and critical criminologies. This article

argues that neither of these responses are tenable and instead calls

for an approach that links theory, method and intervention with the

aim of developing a coherent critical realist approach that is able to

go beyond the existing forms of ‘so what?’ criminology.